In the field of ballistic protections there are known textile structures that stop bullets fired from a gun; they are mainly made of fibers having high breaking strength and textile structures that include, for example: weft-and-warp fabric, unidirectional fabric, multiaxial fabric etc. These structures can be used for making rigid or flexible ballistic protections, in accordance with the type of the bullet to be stopped.
It is very important that the ballistic structures aimed at protecting persons not only stop the bullet, but it is likewise important that the bullet impact (and the subsequent deformation that results therefrom) not cause values of trauma to the wearer: such values of trauma, when exceeding a tolerance threshold, could be fatal or in any case, do not allow the wearer to promptly react to the attack, due to the high shock absorbed by the human body.
Flexible structures are mainly used in civil or para-military fields for the protection against the bullets fired by hand-guns. Such bullets are easily deformable and consequently, are easier to be stopped, also the correlated energy and speed are generally lower than about 1500 Joules and 500 m/sec.
These flexible structures are often associated with rigid structures, of generally smaller dimensions, if the risk scenario includes also the protection against the bullets fired from a rifle, which are difficult to deform and have energy even higher than 4000 Joules and speed higher than 1000 m/sec.
Such compound structures are obviously heavy and do not allow the wearer to react promptly.
According to solutions known in state of the art, for example that described in the International Patent Application WO2013/021401 of F. Ili Citterio SpA, the combination of a rigid part, though with a smaller dimension, with a flexible part having larger dimensions allows high trauma but still acceptable values to be reached. Due to the possible elimination of flexible parts, the consequent unacceptable values of trauma should be compensated by introducing additional non ballistic elements, which however would increase the weight.
It is already a well-established trend to use only hard plates that protect from the major risk, although over a smaller surface.
However, while in the soft structure/rigid structure combination the trauma is controlled by the soft structure, where only the rigid structure is used, the trauma induced by the bullet fired from a rifle widely exceeds the prescribed value.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a ballistic structure, which is capable of ensuring high resistance to piercing and reduced deformation (with resultant trauma), but at the same time, having a limited weight, due to the elimination of non ballistic elements.